Tag: sunflowers

Sunflower Field

Yesterday I posted some of my paintings and a master copy of Khan’s Ground Fog to practice using large, simplified swaths of color to create abstractions of landscapes.

I like abstraction and simplification of things in paintings, but pure abstraction seldom attracts me. Recognition of whatever a painting is trying to depict seems to be essential for me to want to look at a painting, but as I study colorism / colorfield / abstract expressionism more, I find that sometimes pure color by itself can be enticing. I used to detest Rothko’s work, but now I am finding it quite entrancing as I appreciate the subtle qualities of color, and colors adjacent to one another, a lot more.

With this in mind, along with observing the work of Wolf Kahn, Richard Mayhew, Hashim Akib, and Andrew Faulkner, I painted this field of sunflowers.

I started out with big color fields for the sky, trees, and sunflower field using the basic colors of blue (sky), dark green (trees), and yellow and green (sunflower field). From there, I really worked to keep the foreground simple enough as the treeline, mountains, and sky do not beg for detail.

Initially I wanted to paint dots to represent the center of the sunflowers, but in the mindset of color planes, I didn’t. It paid off, but I was still not happy with how the sunflowers and foreground areas looked. Thus, some dabs – but bigger ones, brush strokes instead of dabs to be more accurate. Negative painting, too, and straight lines to represent the sunflower stalks. The buildings and poles were added at the end to add interest to a very horizontally oriented painting.

I am quite pleased with this painting. Goals were accomplished and my own style emerged here. I also did a lot of thinking about colors, how to paint a straight telephone pole (put a card down and run the paint brush along the edge), atmospheric perspective. Simplifying was difficult, but the broad swaths of color with variations within worked. In short, I have a bit of an abstract landscape in which the subject matter is recognizable, but not realistic. If I want a photographic rendition of something, I’ll just take a picture with my camera!

WWM #11: Simple Pleasures

This one had me pondering . . . a good book, flowers, painting.  In the end, I thought of what seems to give me the most pleasure.  The natural world, flowers, plants – the world outside that is simply there.  Sometimes we manipulate it, such as by planting flowers, and other times it is just being itself, chaotic nature.

Here, sunflowers.  A family member was in Las Vegas when the earthquakes of July 4 and 5 hit the Los Angeles area.  Her pool sloshed over, inundating her garden with salty, chlorinated water.  She lost a lot of plants.  I had sent her a picture of some sunflowers she had given me, soon to bloom, and that is when I found out she had lost her plants.  My idea was to (maybe) paint some sunflowers for her, but unfortunately these did not turn out too well.  Still, there was the idea and the pleasure of painting sunflowers . . .

Here, Joshua Trees.  I really get a bang out of these crazy-looking plants, which are very limited in their topographical area for survival, and as the world warms (it really isn’t, per the government), these plants are becoming endangered.  When the US government shut down, Joshua Tree National Monument (or Park?) was heavily vandalized.  Many of these trees take centuries to get big – and then some fool decides they are fair game to destroy.

The natural world is one filled with simple pleasures for our delight.  Some delight in destroying things of beauty, wrecking the work of time.  To me, this is a really sad, pathetic statement about human beings, but then there are those who also work to save our natural world before it disappears.  I am very grateful for these heroes who work to save the simple pleasures of the natural world.

Test Shot

Test Shot of Tokina 17mm ATX Pro on Nikon Df

With my new Nikon Df, I am playing a bit with different lenses. I have bought a couple which are specific for FX Nikons, though much of what I have – old glass – works just fine. Because my ultra-wide angle lens is for the Dx format, and I am heading out for a trip soon, I did a bit of research for a prime wide angle. I came across the Tokina 17mm f3.5 ATX, and it seems pretty nice. Of course, I need to take it out on a walk to see how it does, but I think I will like it quite a bit!